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In addition, fewer youngsters are playing outside because they prefer to spend their time playing games on computers and tablets.

Dr Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, of the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, said the swings help yojng children develop colaborative skills.

She said: "Synchrony enhances cooperation, because your attention is directed at engaging with another person, at the same time.

"We think that being 'in time' together enhances social interaction in positive ways."

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The sensation of flying through the air was a traditional rite of passage

We think that being 'in time' together enhances social interaction in positive ways

Dr Tal-Chen Rabinowitch

The study follows previous work by her and others that have linked young children being in sinc by playing music with other sociable behaviours - such as helping, sharing and empathizing.

Similar activities done together like marching to a song, for example, may prompt one child to share with another.

The latest study, published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, sought to focus on movement alone, without music, and examined how children cooperated with one another afterwards.

Cooperation - adapting to a situation, compromising with someone else, working toward a common goal - is considered a life skill, one that parents and teachers try to develop in a child's early years.

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But, fewer youngsters are playing outside now

The researchers built a set that enabled two children to swing in unison, in controlled cycles of time.

The children who swung in unison completed the tasks faster, indicating better cooperation than those who swung out of sync, or not at all.

On a button-push task, for instance, the pairs who had been swinging together showed a greater tendency to strategically raise their hands before they pushed the button.

This signalled their intent to the other child, which proved to be a successful tactic for the task.

For four year olds, moving in sync can create a feeling of "being like" another child that, consequently, may encourage them to communicate more and try to work together, Dr Rabinowitch said.

Pychologist Professor Andrew Meltzof added: "Cooperation has both a social and cognitive side, because people can solve problems they could not solve alone.

"We didn't know before we started the study that cooperation between four year olds could be enhanced through the simple experience of moving together. It is provocative that kids' cooperation can be profoundly changed by their experiences."

In the study pairs of four year olds who were unfamiliar to one another were randomly assigned to groups that either swung together in precise time, swung out of sync with each other, or didn't swing at all.

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The children who swung in unison completed the tasks faster

The pairs in all three groups then participated in a series of tasks designed to evaluate their cooperation.

In one activity, the children played a computer game that required them to push buttons at the same time in order to see a cartoon figure appear.

Another, called the 'give and take' activity, involved passing objects back and forth through a puzzle-like device.

Dr Rabinowitch believes the results can have implications outside the lab. Teachers and parents can provide "in sync" opportunities for groups of children, whether through music, dance or play.

In the UK councils shut 214 playgrounds in financial years 2014-16 blaming 'unprecedented budget constraints' forcing them to get rid of parks and sports facilities, Freedom of Information requests have revealed.

Councils also revealed that they had 80 more closures in 2016-17, followed by plans for 103 in the current budget period and at least 51 closures planned for 2018.

The more recent figures most likely understate the number of closures, because around a third of councils said they had not yet finalised their plans, according to the Association of Play Industries, which submitted the FOI requests.

Mark Hardy, chair of the API, said government investment of around £100m would be required to reverse the trend in closures.

He said: "With increasing childhood obesity and the health benefits of activity and play well known, now is not the time for community playgrounds to be closing.

"This action goes against the government's clear intention to get children more active and needs to be stopped as quickly as possible."